Crane's Funeral and Wallace Stevens

Stephen Crane died on June 5, 1900, in Badenweiler, Germany at the age of twenty-eight. His body was then transported to New York, where it was buried on June 28, 1900. At the time of his death, Crane's reputation had waned and few people attended the funeral. One, who did attend, however, was the young Wallace Stevens. The cursory funeral and memorial appalled him and he wrote in his journal that "the whole thing was frightful."

The funeral made a great impression on Stevens. At the time he was struggling with whether he should become a poet full time or work as a journalist. The struggle for Stevens arose from the doing (Hebraism)--making a living, material success, security--verses "falling off the edge"(Hellenism)--reading, studying and writing poetry. In his mind there was something unmanly about writing poetry. A man needed to do things--i.e. have a job and make money.

Crane's end scared Stevens. Here was a man, who he idolized, dead and without fame or fortune. Crane's renown would come later, like other American poets of the 19th century; however, Stevens was unprepared to write posthumously and consequently he acquiesced to his father's demands and took up first journalism and then the law. Doing conquered not-doing; order overcame chaos.

Failure of Magic

I wrote a fantasy novel a couple of years ago entitled Okeanus, which I sent out to some agents. Unfortunately, they were uninterested. I am now re-writing the book to submit to a novel contest. As I was writing the novel several questions arose concerning magic. Primarily, how do fantasy writers describe the magic? Is it logical? Where does it come from? How is it used? How is it described? To answer the question I began to read with an eye on the magical systems. Once I began to dwell on these questions, I realized most fantasy writers do not deal with it very well. After awhile, I decided that most fantasy writers simply present their magic--their personal fantasies of power--on the plate like a dead fish. Magic for them is a fait accompli, without much explanation. More often than not, their magic arises from a genetic gift or power of the gods or the daemons. I then turned to non-fiction and the biographies of mages, shamans, witches. This study produced better results but ultimately it was not much help. Finally, I decided to base my magical system on learned spells. In other words, words spoken poetically create the power the speaker wields. My archetypal magician is Aaron, Moses' brother. Remember Moses stuttered and depended on Aaron's verbal facility. Also, remember that Aaron performs magic and battles the Pharoah's magicians and that all creation in the Bible springs from the word. Magic in Okeanus then depends upon learning, recitation, repetition and manifestation. Magic is created and imbued with human spirit and human emotion. And, as we all know, heightened emotion is enervating and erratic, spontaneous, and dangerous. Magic should also contain these attributes.

Matthew Arnold's Great Essay

When the doing fails and the Hebraic command
goes unheeded, my right hand quakes
and shivers from fear and I turn toward the other--
the Hellenic release, the sinister side--
and seek solace in the unreal.
The poem contains the not-doing
while alluding to the doing. The script,
a liquid sculpture, stains the page.
Arnold engineered the seesaw;
he saw the necessity in structure
balanced among the ancients. Stevens
picked it up like a fumbled ball
and ran with it, speaking its division
over and over in one guise or another.
He found release in the up and down strokes;
and threaded the needle with its theme
like James and Carlyle before him,
the great Peripatetics.

La Ronde

From the fire comes the shadow.
From the shadow comes the silhouette.
From the silhouette comes the story.
From the story comes the tale.
From the tale comes the myth.
From the myth comes the gods.
From the gods comes man.
From man comes the fire.

Summer 1958

He shot a single round
into the silent wood
on a summer's eve.
The bullet smashed limbs
and something substantial fell
to the shadowed ground--
a great silhouette
shaded gray in the dusk.
He guessed it was a bird.
Night descended
and he thought
he heard weeping
in the woods.
He begged leave
to look
but it was late
and they refused.
The next morning
he searched
for spoor
but found nothing
but fallen limbs,
dead leaves,
and pine needles.
The darkness dressed
a dire drama;
the sun
defined
a summer's day.

Sins of the Father-A review of Gav Thorpe's "Malekith"

I was very anxious to read Gav Thorpe's new novel "Malekith." In fact, I haunted the bookstores until I found one in Austin at Book People. I quickly started it, although I was already two-thirds through a biography of Robert Frost. It was a good read and I quickly submitted a review to Amazon.com. Here is the review.

Although Gav Thorpe's new novel is entitled, "Malekith," its scope is greater than the story of one man. Instead, it delineates the development of the Warhammer world as we know it and recounts the rise and fall of Malekith. In a sense, the story of Malekith is a tragedy rather than an epic. Although the novel has "epic" qualities--the expansion of the elves and the exploration of the unknown world--it is ultimately the story of one man's greed and lust for power. Like Macbeth, a great warrior is lured from the light to the dark by greed and the ministrations of a woman. In Malekith's case it is the greed and ambition of his Mother, Morathi, that taunts him, goads him, and tricks him. Thorpe's Malekith, however, is not one dimensional. Throughout the novel, the reader feels that the means, no matter how despicable, have within Malekith's twisted thinking a logical and noble end--to protect the elves from the Chaos gods. It is this element that raises Thorpe's novel from simply being a good Warhammer story to being a great Warhammer story.

The first novel of the planned trilogy begins with the end of Aenarion and concludes with the death of Bel Shanaar, the Phoenix King. The narrative involves four major set pieces: the expansion of the elves in the east and the alliance with the dwarves; Malekith's exploration of the west and the Chaos waste; Malekith's war against the cultists in Nagarythe; and the betrayal of the Phoenix King.

Thorpe handles the exploration of the east and the establishment of the elven colonies in the old world brilliantly. His description of the dwarven cities is meticulous in its detail. However, the dwarven segment is not simply a side show; it is important to the development of Malekith's character and to the reader's understanding of that character. Although Malekith's anger and ambition are apparent from the beginning of the novel, Malekith truly respects the dwarves and their king. At the end of Part One, Malekith mourns for his lost friend and intends to honor his oath to the Snorri Whitebeard. However, the next section of the novel finds Malekith on his way to the Chaos wastes in the west, where he discovers an ancient city of the Old Ones and discovers a magic circlet that imbues him with new power and insight into the threat of the Chaos gods. From this point on, Malekith moves toward his inevitable fate. His hubris ultimately leads him to the Shrine of Asuryan.

As I read the novel I was struck by several things: the psychological complexity of Malekith's character; the clear detailed descriptions of all the locations; the distinct personality and character of the various Warhammer races; an abiding continuity to Warhammer lore and fluff; and the lucid prose. I have read most of Gav Thorpe's work and I think this may be his best. I am quite anxious to read the second volume of the trilogy.

I highly recommend this novel to both fantasy lovers and gamers. The Warhammer intellectual property is so rich and so developed that it transcends tie-in fiction. With the Time of Legends series, it seems Black Library has decided to up the ante; to create epic works that can proudly compete with any non-IP fantasy fiction. As a companion piece to this work I recommend Graham McNeill's "Guardians of Ulthuan," and "Heldenhammer," Mike Lee and Dan Abnett's Malus Darkblade series, Mike Lee's "Nagash the Sorcerer," and Nathan Long's "Elfslayer."

An Aphorism

Order and doing
purchases peace
for the purblind
who fear idleness.
Age bears sorrow,
silence and sin
through memory--
misplaced then made.
Doing and order
embrace
youth as imagined,
existing in chaos's
grip.
Reconciliation
thinks not
nor dreams.

Fox-clock

Fox-clock has no face,
no hands, no springs,
no gears. And yet, the fox
awakes with the morning sun,
hunts under the moon's mellow light,
dines on chickens, ducks, and eggs,
dozes in the forest's green shadow,
mates in the farmer's glen,
births in a shallow hidden den,
and dies without fear
or imminent dread
of its inevitable end.

Winter Hunts

Wolf-words weary elk-bulls
worrying them until they fall,
their hamstrings sprung,
their feet odd,
and their rhythm dead.
Ground squirrels sleep
silent under leaf and moss,
while bears birth cubs
in shallow caves
and snow blankets
the north face of a higher glen.
Inertia is the greenest god
draining words white.
Gasping glossolalia
surfeits all sentence sense
until the silver thread
of their dying sibilance
stretches as far back
as forward. Only fatigue
traps the line at full stop.
Only spring or hunger
wakes the hibernating beasts.

Will

Wolves hunt in packs
but they weary
of the long chase.
Others never tire.
Their will,
fueled by desire,
drives them on,
until their prey
falls helpless,
its heart
bursting
from the run.

Petroglyphs arrives at Amazon

Sound Considered

Shipwreckt
sits
on the fringe
of the palms’
skirt
and ponders
the sense
and sound
of wind
and surf
surging
against
shore.

Kavka/Jackdaw

The jackdaw,
born Kavka
in Prague,
fractures
a semiotic
chirp
that sounds
Latin
not Greek
and festers
black
like a Chow's
tongue.

Proper Study

Study
red fox
in winter
rather than Caliban,
and discover
what nature
in an unnatural
world
struggles
to be.

The Shipwreck's Dream

The shipwreck dreams of Abraham's sacrifice.
He awakens with a cough and these words:
"Abraham walks on the edge of his knife."
Meanwhile, the monkeys gambol in the palms;
the stream rushes to the sea;
snails flourish under red leaves;
and turtles lay eggs in the sand.
The night passes;
the moon wanes;
the mountain's gray silhouette
casts its shadows over the beach.

Snail Math

A mathematical design:
draw
a line
from Alpha to Zed
to illustrate
the silver thread
that shimmers
at dawn,
and marks
the finitude
of the snail's
journey
between the grass
and the leaf.

Island Dwelling

Within the shipwrecked,
the island dwells.

Below clouds salt
a tremulous sky
and coral embraces
gastropods
as jungles
fringe
mountain roots.

Four-fold divinities
gibber like ghosts
on Pentecost
and flying fish
flutter
like ox tongues
on a hot griddle.

The Shipwreck's Agenda

Ten years
from the day
of the shipwreck,
the shipwrecked
gleaned
a glimpse
of a gray sail
on green horizon.
As he cleared
his pale dwelling
of pink shells,
buried bottles,
sour weed
and fetid fish,
he brushed
away the vision
like a fly
near his ear
or an ant
on his leg.

Furnace Talk

To tap
the vein
requires
a pick
and ax,
a shovel
and a crowbar.
Dug-stone,
silent
as ore
out of the furnace,
sighs
sibilant
before the steam.

The Man who Walks on his Head

Even though the year 1967, was dark and disastrous for Paul Celan, it was also a year of doing and creating, of writing and translating; it was a year of poetry that continued and built upon the "breathturn," which he demonstrated in his work produced in 1963 and 1964.

The year began with the publication of the French translation of the presentation he made in Darmstadt in October 1960, upon his receipt of the Georg Buchner Prize. The essay, entitled "The Meridian," is about art generally and poetry specifically. In the essay or speech, Celan writes, inter alia, that "a man who walks on his head, ladies and gentlemen, a man who walks on his head sees the sky below, as an abyss."

I postulate that much of Celan's poetry is about the vision of the abyss seen when we adjust our point of view. This adjustment can be drastic--for instance, when we stand on our head--or minor, when we turn our head and gaze out of the far corner of our eye. The change in perspective alters our view and refreshes our vision. This refreshment may be pleasing or shocking. It doesn't matter; it awakens the mind to the strangeness of the new and the different.

When something is new and different, the reader tends to concentrate. It is the concentration or attention that Celan believes the poem seeks. Quoting Kafka, he says: "attention is the natural prayer of the soul." Consequently, is he saying obliquely that poetry is soul-involving? Isn't it true that when soul is activated it grows, strengthens, and deepens. Poetry that arrests our attention, I postulate, deepens soul.

Celan's concept of arrest is described metaphorically as a "breathturn." He writes: "Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way--the way of art--for the sake of just such a turn?"